Loud Thinking

Posts Tagged ‘umar’

Yes we can, we have not one but two persons, who can deliver to the nation and the world even more than Steve Jobs, provided they are given the government patronage, proper atmosphere and opportunity for R&D in IT sector; and they are Mr. Umar Saif, world renowned IT genius guru and Chairman PITB and Mr. Jibran Asghar, an IT (software) genius of Pakistan, working for the last 10 years in Bern, Switzerland.

If we watch the Movie “Jobs” which is based on the story of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer Inc., is a life story of how the Apple Computer Inc. came into being.

It is a story of a man driven by his brilliance. It was as if he knew his life was short and he was given this gift and ordered to fulfill it.

In that quest he failed to make friends, gave up old friends, did not amass wealth, lived a simple life, took some controversial actions that were wrongly interpreted. Yet, he managed to create an enterprise that was valued as the most valuable company in the world.

In that process he made thousands of Millionaires and lifted hundreds of families from abject poverty to a life of affluence.

His mantra was simple, give the people something that they have never used but be honest when you offer that. The net result was he generated an unparalleled following.

Apple sold less cell phones than most of the worlds brands, but made many times more revenue than any other cell phone company. The reason, people trusted Apple to provide the best. Then sacrificed (some even sold their body organs) to obtain their product at any price. Apple delivered what it promised.

That is how legends are made.

Heartiest congratulations to Pakistani cricket team and PCB, on consecutive all cricket formats victories, against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh cricket teams.

Now the real test of planning, talent and abilities, awaits our cricket team and it’s management, against English team in UAE series, next month.

In this regard, the PCB may consider as below, a recipe for winning against England.

1. Positive Attitude.  Defensive minds are neither creative nor cooperative. Until  and unless we only focus on nothing short of winning (and consider a DRAW as a DEFEAT) no planning and preparation, will give us the desired results.

2. Planning. The team management in particular and players in general must be told that PLANS never fail, rather we fail to PLAN. And for planning, the first and foremost thing is the mind set, totally focused on goal achievement. In order to achieve the impossible, it is precisely imperative, to think the unthinkable.

3. Video Analysis. All concerned must sit and watch strengths and weaknesses of English as well as, Pakistani players. This will not only help in overcoming our weaknesses, but will also help in field settings, determining bowling line and length, knowing weakness of opponent players, against fast and spin bowling etc.

4. Infusion of Motivation. Since, cricket is a mind game, a motivation specialist (NOT psychiatrist) must be attached with the team, with the task to convert our players, from being simply dynamic persons to a DYNAMITE personality, so that every player must perform, to his peak ability. In my opinion, the best person in the country, for this job is Ms Andleeb Abbas.

5. Team Selection. (a) The success of any project depends on the right selection of it’s team members. The enemy of the BEST is often the GOOD. In fact, now it is said that the only difference between winning and losing organizations is the quality of it’s people, which includes their character, belief, habits, personal motivation and abilities.

(b) We should not only select players on merit or past performances but, one or two batsmen and bowlers from domestic circuit should also be selected by just anticipating, that given a chance, they can be stars overnight with their sheer fearlessness and big game temperament. Just like as a shrewd jeweler, we should pick a diamond from the rubbles.

(c) Having said that, Shahid Afridi (basically on his bowling and fielding abilities and forgetting his batting ability, because in cricket bowlers win matches) and Umar Akmal (if he is given the wicket keeping job the team becomes more balanced), must be selected for the Test teams as well.

(d) Similarly, our wicket keepers on show till now have been just average players. We must find some really outstanding wicket keeper, for which the legend Mr. Wasim Bari should be assigned the task, to find out the person who can be categorized as find of the tour.

6.Team Management. The team management must be told that business as usual, will not deliver in this most tough series. They should know that management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things. Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; Leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

Dr. Umar Saif Named one of the World’s Top Young Innovators by MIT. Link :- http://www.lums.edu.pk/news_detail.php?id=TlRBeg

Dr. Umar Saif, Associate Professor at the School of Science of Engineering, has been recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the top 35 innovators (TR35) in the world. In the last decade, this is the first time a Pakistani has been selected for the prestigious TR35 award.

 “The TR35 recognizes the world’s top 35 young innovators that are radically transforming technology as we know it. Their work – spanning medicine, computing, communications, energy, electronics and nanotechnology — is changing our world”, according to MIT Technology Review.

Dr. Umar Saif has been honoured for his work on technologies for the developing-world. Technologies developed by Dr. Saif’s research group and startups are used by millions of people in the developing-world. Notable among the many of these are: BitMate – that enhances the speed of Internet in the developing-world using peer-to-peer technology, and SMSall.pk – Pakistan’s largest SMS Social Network which has sent close to 4 billion SMS for users in Pakistan.

Dr. Umar Saif joins an elite group of researchers and entrepreneurs selected over the last decade. Previous winners include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook; Jonathan Ive, the chief designer at Apple; David Karp, founder of Tumbler; Harvard Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik for his work on Quantum computers; and MIT Neuroscientist Ed Boyden, one of the inventors of the emerging field of optogenetics, which makes it possible to control neurons with light.

MIT Technology Review selects the top innovators after a rigorous evaluation process. Judges, who are leading experts in their fields from universities such as MIT, Stanford and Harvard, consider hundreds of high-impact researchers and entrepreneurs from all over the world, out of which top 35 are chosen for the award.

“This year’s group of TR35 recipients is driving the next wave of transformative technology and making an impact on the way we live, work and interact”, said Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief and publisher of the MIT Technology Review.

Dr. Saif has won numerous awards for his innovative technology solutions for the developing-world. He was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2010. He is a recipient of the MIT Technovator Award (Grassroot Technologies); Mark Weiser Award for best paper award at PERCOM, the top rated conference in the field of pervasive computing; Digital Inclusion Award from Microsoft Research and the IDG CIO Technology Pioneer Award. Before moving to Pakistan, Saif worked at MIT and received a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust.

“We are immensely proud of this recognition for Dr. Saif and of how it reflects on the cutting edge work being done at our young School of Science and Engineering”, said Adil Najam, Vice Chancellor of LUMS.  “Dr. Saif’s work demonstrates not only the potential for innovation in technology for development but also the level of enterprise and expertise that already exists within Pakistan and the larger developing world.”

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